The North Star's Glow: TL of the Free Republic of Columbia

liberty-bell-1776-granger.jpg


Oh Flag of Columbia, how Glorious the sight,
As millions of Free Men rise up in their might!
To battle for Homeland and Liberty's Cause
And aid in defending her rightly-writ laws!
Our Freedom it must, and shall be preserved
the Patriot's duty from which we nere swerved.
So we say: let Tyrants come try what they will!
The Flag of Columbia shall float or us still!
-The Flag of Columbia; Unofficial Anthem of the Free Republic
Introduction: A pleasure to meet you, residents of alternatehistory.com. You can call me Filly of Delphi, and after several years of lurking on this site, I've finally mustered up the determination and inspiration to contribute in exchange for all the wonderful timelines/discussions you've brought me. For that inspiration, I'd like to give a dedication to MacGregor and his timeline The Union Forever, whose early portion I've recently read in full and who's tone and scale I hope to emulate.

I've always been fascinated by the concept of a "Reverse Civil War" (A War of Southern Aggression/Northern Secession) ever since I first saw the idea in the POP demand mod for Victoria 2 but haven't found much discussion of it on this site. From what I have seen, this is because most proposed scenarios start too late for it to be a realistic possability, and its this gap I hope to fill. This TL will diverge from our history at the time of the Constitutional Convention, and lead up to its version of The Civil War and hopefully beyond. As I'm somewhat new to this, suggestions and constructive critique are more than welcome; hopefully, I can both entertain you and enlighten myself at the same time. Without further to do, let us begin.


Divergence: The Constitutional Convention.


Background

The First Constitutional Convention (Constitutional Convention of 1787) was called by the Congress of the Confederation as much-needed response to the swell of problems facing the young republic. Initially afraid that a strong national government might take away the new-found independence the states had just gained from England, for its first eight years America's government was structured under The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union: a weak national government that lacked the authority to collect taxes, impose uniform rules over the individual states, or enforce American interests in international affairs. This weakness lead to several squabbles between the states and the state and national government during the 1780's; Maryland and Virginia fighting a trade and legal war over navigation monopolies on the Potomac River, the ambivalence of New England preventing the national government from taking action after Spain closed the Mississippi to American shipping, and perhaps most telling the Congress of Confederation having no way to repay the debt it'd taken on during the American Revolution, resulting in Great Britain refusing to evacuate its forts in the Northwest territories or end its relations with tribes now on American soil. It was these commercial concerns; the need for states to generate enough revenue so they could pay back their creditors, and the resistance of state residents to high direct taxes was what New York politician Alexander Hamilton pinpointed as the root of the national strife during his speech at the previous autumn's Annapolis Convention, famously declaring "I see no way in which thirteen drowning men, each tugging at the same raft, might make it to shore safely lifeboat than our squabbling states should continue our national compact in peace in our current state. We must act a single continent, not islands onto ourselves." Many historians consider this last part a thinly-veiled jab at the state of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations; by far the single biggest troublemaker in the Confederation in terms of asserting her sovereignty. Not only had the tiny region imposed a unilateral tax on national post traffic but had been only state to veto an attempt to create a national tariff, restricting the national government's one possibility of a continuous revenue stream.

Hamilton's conclusion seemed to be vindicated when in early 1787 a mob of over 1,000 frontier farmers under the command of Daniel Shays; a former captain of the 5th Massachusetts, marched on Springfield in an attempt to seize the armory and force the bankers and government in Boston to return their repossessed farmers, cancel debts, and provide back-salaries to unpaid Revolutionary War veterans by force of arms. As the Federal government had no standing army (Since they lacked the money to pay one) as Massachusetts was already deeply in debt, the state government had to raise a militia with funds solicited from the very same merchants who had foreclosed on the rebels' property to put down the rebellion, secure national arms, and re-impose the civil courts the farmers and forcefully closed. The disturbing news of Shay's insurrection caused the politicians and many common citizens to panic: after all, many states had debt-ridden farmers and financially-strapped state governments, and the necessity of an army funded by private elites raised the disturbing specter of a potential "Hessian Rule"; mercenary armies used to enforce the whims of the rich where democratic institutions were too poor to resist, perhaps with the backing of British or Spanish bullion. The incident made the need for a stronger national government clear enough that 12 states were convinced to send delegates to Philadelphia to hammer out the needed amendments to the articles; only Rhode Island refusing to attend.



The Great Debates: From Confederation to Nation

From May 25th to September 30th, the delegates held gatherings in the assembly room of the Pennsylvania State House; George Washington elected the presiding officer by unanimous vote on the first day. Initially convened the draft suitable amendments to the Articles, the first week of the convention was largely consumed by vigorous discussion over weather it was even possible to create a suitably powerful national government within the limited Articles' limited framework. This discussion; the first of the "Great Debates": those dividing points on the new government's structure that would take up most of the Convention's time and usually end in compromise, defined by back to back speeches from those on opposite sides of the aisle that could take up an entire day in themselves (Such days would sometimes be mocked as "Long Parliament" days by those delegates absent from the convention hall, in reference to the long-winded discussions of the MP's of the early parts of the English Civil War).

Supporters of simply amending the Articles of Confederation, called "Confederates", were most common among delegates from the largest states, such as New York, who enjoyed more power under the current decentralized system and feared a restructuring of the government might take away what they perceived as the rights of their "sovereign" states, and the smallest states who believed they would be overwhelmed by the more populous ones in a singular national government. Though small in number, they did find a speaker in the tenacious; as his supporters would call him, or tedious; as he was often derided, in Judge Robert Yates of New York. Depending largely on dry, legalistic arguments which questioned the extent of the Convention's authority and individual liberty than the merits of the Articles, the Confederate position would be quickly dismissed as untenable by his more pragmatic opposition.


This opposition called itself the "Nationalists" because they favored a new government that was a fully sovereign nation; subject not the individual states but the will of the people. Though supported by such personalities as George Washington and James Madison of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton of New York, early discussion was dominated by the Rufus King; a young representative from what was at the time Massachusetts. Specifically instructed by a government fresh off the scare of Shay's Rebellion to promote the formation of a national military, he took the floor every day of the first week's debate, countering Yates' arrangements with, according to an exert from George Washington's memoirs of the occasion "A thundering oratory which couldn't help but captivate the entire chamber. It was his informative, patriotic speeches, I feel, which stirred the heart of all but the most conceited Confederates to the love of our one nation". One key counterpoint the Nationalists could raise against the main Confederate argument; the need to preserve individual liberties, was the impassibility of those liberties being secured without a strong Federal government. "Tell me to what extent the right of property exists when, like in the state of brutish nature, any brigand may have what he likes with nothing more than a stronger arm and sharper spear than its owner? What value is the farmers crop when his government can not assure it can get to market without the privations of foreign pirates", Jame Madison's official minutes record him as saying, to which "Mr. Hamilton began a polite applause for the gentleman from Massachusetts, who no doubt knew of such things firsthand"


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Rufus King of Massachusetts, whom after the convention was a key speaker and

advocate for the ratification of the Constitution and the Nationalist clique. Though he became close friends and
co-workers with his fellow young Nationalist Alexander Hamilton, King would quickly adopt a
far more populist rhetoric compared than his unapologetically elitist partner


Next Up The Great Debates: Representation, Debt, Defence and the Slavery Question





 
The Constitutional Convention Part II

The Great Debates: Representation


Though by June 2nd an official passage of a motion to draft a Constitution passed 28-6 (Other absent, abstaining, or not yet present in Philadelphia), the decision to completely reform the national government created a number of new questions for the Convention to solve. Under the Articles, the Congress of the Confederation had acted more as a deliberative body than a decision maker for the "firm league of friendship"; each state having a single vote regardless of population and any action requiring the approval of all 13 states, headed by a President who held little power beyond mediating the debate to insure civility. While there was broad agreement that the effective liberum veto created by the need for unanimity created would be done away with, and an empowered executive and national judiciary would be needed to insure the legislature's laws could be enforced (the basics of the Nationalist platform), the sheer number of ways the new Congress* could be structured and what forms and powers the new executive and judiciary might take, meant that the argument over representation proved the most divisive of the Great Debates.

Jointly drafted by the Virginia delegation but presented by Governor Edmund Randolph, the Virginia Plan (Also known as the Population Plan, due to its assertion that representation should be based solely on population numbers) was the first option discussed. They suggested that the Senate* should be made up of two houses: the first elected by the people and the second elected by the members of the first house, with representation in both proportional to the state's population. Both houses combined would than elect a "National Executive" for a single term representing a state for a rotating series of regions (A concession from Madison's original draft Randolph, who feared the monopolization of executive power by a single state). Its judiciary would consist of a Council of Revisions, based on the New York model; the Executive and 6 judges who were appointed by the Executive, who would hold a veto over both state and national legislation and act as a court of last appeal for all other courts in the country. The Senate would have full authority over the public treasury, establish the lower national courts, and would have the power to appeal state laws to the Council of Revisions if they felt it was unconstitutional. This plan naturally favored the larger states, who would dominate the legislature and likely retain executive power in the regional rotation, leading several delegates to murmur in their memoirs about "An endless cycle of three Dynasties; Virginia to New York to Massachusetts and back again"

The smaller states and Confederates vehemently opposed the Virginia plan; the former because it threatened to limit their power in the legislature, and the later because the national veto and removal of state legislatures from the election threatened the idea of state sovereignty. Following the initial discussion of the plan, the delegations of Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, and New Jersey, alongside a handful of remaining Confederate delegates, gained a four day recess to draft an alternative. The result, primarily penned jointly by The Honorable William Patterson of New Jersey and Robert Yates after several Nationalist-leaning delegates dropped out of the process, was the New Jersey Plan. Also known as the New Articles of Confederation, the plan retained a striking amount of elements from the old government; representatives to the single-house Congress of the Constitution* would be appointed directly by state legislatures for a fixed term in whatever numbers a state saw fit, but would only have a single vote per state. The Federal Executive would be directly appointed by the Congress for a single 1 year term; subject to recall by majority vote at any time and, unlike under the Virginia Plan, wouldn't have the power to pose legislation to Congress. The Judiciary would consist of Executives who'd finished their terms and served for life, but would only handle cases of disputes between states, involving foreign governments, or relating to navigation/maritime law. The national treasury and army would also be raised on a proportional basis; states being expected to contribute to the former based on their state-level budget and the later on the number of free white men.

Nationalists, by and large, totally rejected the New Jersey Plan. However, some still found the Virginia plan unsatisfactory, and as the debate raged on between the Randolph's and Patterson's supporters a handful of radical nationalists created a third option; recorded in the official minutes as the New York Plan but almost universally labeled for its author, Alexander Hamilton. The Hamilton Plan, taking the stance that the Virginia proposal didn't do enough to insure 'good government', retained the idea of a bi-bicameral legislature but had both its upper house and an executive Governor elected for life by a new body: the College of Elector, who would themselves by elected for life by the people proportionally to their state's population. The Governor had an absolute veto over all action by the National Assembly*, appoint members of a Council who would oversee execution of the law without its approval, and had the sole authority to commission officers for all state and national armed forces; though the upper house of the National Assembly would still be required to declare war. While the plan was received as well-structured and efficient, it far too closely resembled the "despotism" of the British system the nation had so recently thrown off, and the accountability of the electors and lack of citizen involvement made even many moderate Nationalists balk at its infringement on individual rights.

After much debate (which consumed nearly the entire month of June; long enough for the delegation from New Hampshire to finally arrive to vote for its approval), a compromise between all three systems was eventually crafted by Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut after a series of private meetings with Hamilton, Patterson, and Madison (The details of these meetings don't exist on the public record, though some details can be gleaned from Madison's later memoirs. Journal entries by Alexander Hamilton have also been found on the subject, though most scholars believe he greatly embellished his own role in the affair). The Connecticut Plan, also called the Compromise plan, was mainly structured around the popular Virginia Plan, which had received the most vocal support during the debates, but contained several several concessions to insure its acceptability to the small states. Under it, the Continental Congress* would be made up of two houses; an upper Senate and a lower Assembly of Representatives, with each state having two Senators; taken from the New Jersey Plan and their number of representatives depending on the population of the state population as in the Virginia Plan. In addition to their legislative responsibilities, the two houses would also elect a single President, who would wield executive power, on behalf of their constituents in the vein of Hamilton's Electors: every state holding a popular vote and the representatives being obligated, though not absolutely bound, to vote in line with their state. The official language of the act read "The President of the United States shall be elected by the legislature directed by the vote of the people" The judiciary would consist of state courts (who handled state law), lower national courts established Senate to handle violations of national law by the citizens, or crimes against Federal employees, and a pair of high courts: an Admiralty Court to act as the (sole) arbiter of cases involving US military personnel, navigation & commerce, piracy, or cases involving foreign nationals, and a Supreme Court who would arbitrate disputes between the states and act as a universal Court of Last Resort for all other courts in the nation.

The structure itself was straightforward enough, by the Connecticut Plan contained a number of unique details, and further amendment of the plan after it was presented to the Convention lead to the addition of several more important changes. First among these in the continent of the Judiciary, over which proponents of the New Jersey Plan threatened to sink the Compromise on the grounds that allowing the state cases to be appealed to the Supreme Court violated the jurisdiction of the state courts. This would eventually be overcome by Jacob Broom of Maryland; a Nationalist who'd initially been part of the drafting of the Plan before dropping out, who was assisted by Rufus King in floor speeches and Alexander Hamilton in subtler work, to add the New Jersey idea of "Ascendancy" to the Constitution. In exchange for accepting the right of citizens to appeal state court rulings to the Supreme Court, former Presidents would be given appointments to sit on the court, either for life or until willing retirement, in addition to 6 "Appointed Justices" nominated by the sitting President and approved by the state legislator-elected Senate, rather than the popularly-elected Assembly as had initially been proposed. In addition, to protect against the fear of a President being elected by narrow margins in a few large state, the process for electing the President would be tweaked slightly so that each Senator would have twice the number of votes, insure the checks and balances to protect the less populace states existed in the Executive branch as well as the legislative. The Hamiltonians were placated by adding Article VI: The Supremacy of the National Government, declaring the "The Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the he land notwithstanding anything in the constitution or laws of any state."

The Great Debates: Debt and Defense

Though some delegates felt that the questions of how to organize and pay for the state and national debt and militias were matters to be decided after the new government was formed and convened, not before, they were unable to prevent the issues from being raised. The shadows of Shay's Rebellion, the understanding by most of American society that the inability to manage finances and defend American interests were the primary reasons for the failure of the Articles in the first place, and the primacy of these interests to King and Hamilton; who thanks to acting as unofficial whips for proponents of the Connecticut Plan spent a disproportionate amount of time holding the floor, insured that they would soon be brought to the forefront. Even those in the Confederate clique who didn't agree to the legality of the new Constitution recognized the national debt as within the scope of the Convention. According to the figures presented by Washington, the United States had several millions of dollars of debt, both to foreign nations and in the form of bonds disproportionately held by ex-Continental Army soldiers as payment for their services during the War, and needed to decide on how it was going to start paying back what it owed. This issue was of particular concern to Hamilton; who believed starting on good financial footing would boost public confidence in their new government and promote economic growth, who spoke out strongly for having the national government assume state debts; first paying off foreign creditors and then domestic bondholders . The states would 'pay' for this by giving up their right to establish tariffs to the national government, which would not only give the Continental Congress a stable revenue but protect budding manufacturing and commercial interests inside The United States. This idea appealed primarily to New England and residents of larger ports such as New York, who conducted the lions share of national trade and production.

Another faction of the Nationalists, lead by Rodulf King, tried to broaden the appeal to Western farmers by insisting American citizens be paid back before the foreign creditors. King's speeches on the subject asserted that it was un-Republican to put citizens who were often teetering on the edge of bankruptcy behind merchants and governments who could more safely wait for payment, and suggested that once the debt was paid off the revenue could be put towards purchasing additional land from the Native Americans and funding public roads and canals. Washington's memoirs record the debates between Hamilton and King "The most friendly, sportsmanlike discussion seen at the Convention", the two stances quickly finding common ground. The delegates of the seaboard states believed the growth of industry under a protective tariff and expanding markets complimented each other nicely, and the idea of cheaper shipping prices and the acquisition of land which could be sold cheaply by the national government managed to win even those delegates wary of commercial interests. In the end, Hamilton adopted King's position on priority for domestic bondholders, and the Nationalists proposed language for the Constitution which would oblige the National Government to "lay such duties and imposts as are nessicery to maintain to provide and maintain a navy suitable for the common defense of the United States, and the security of her commerce overseas"

The nationalist clique faced a great deal of opposition from Southern states, who opposed the entire idea of having the federal government pay the states' debts. They had already paid off some or most of their obligations, and the northern states held a disproportionately large share of the remaining debt. Many southern delegates also felt their export-based plantation economies would end up paying more under the proposed tariff, effectively taking on the Yankees' tax burdens themselves. A few defectors from the slave-holding states, such as James Madison and Abraham Baldwin of Georgia, argued for the Nationalist plans based on the need for a strong military both for the sake of defending their vulnerable frontiers from increasingly hostile Indians and insuring Southern goods and to honor their widely popular alliance with France. Most of the tidewater planters formed a united from with the Confederates, proposing instead that the federal government be funded by a poll tax from the states in proportion to their free white population; citing the precident of the early Dutch Republic, and that states should be left to pay their own debts as the saw fit.

Getting the South to agree to the tariff plan was no easy feat, as at the time that section of the country held most of the financial leverage. Washington, though Nationalist in his sympathies, had to remain impartial as the preceding official leaving the Convention largely split down regional line. A coalition of Northern Nationalists and frontier-minded Southerners and Westerners, came together to try to find an acceptable compromise position. Meanwhile the Southerners and Confederates found a hero in Charles Pinckney the Younger of South Carolina, who passionately rejected any plan he perceived as "peculiarly hostile to Southern interests to the exclusive benefit of another portion of these Republics". Only briefly mentioned earlier on for his quickly dismissed Pinckney Plan; a shody alternative of the Virginia plan which had found no other supporters, the young planter now began to speak more often than any other Southern delegate, his impassioned rejections sinking any plan that included a protective customs duty. In order for a final Constitution to be drafted, something would have to be found to appease the plantation states.

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Charles Pinckney the Younger. A highly controversial figure to his contemporaries,
Pinckney is often seen as a Confederate foil to Hamilton and King. A powerful
and prolific speaker like King and a self-assured elitist like Hamilton, Pickney
was an unapologetic partisan for the Southern aristocracy and advocate for using
the national government to spread the "Blessings of Southern life, the

refined perfection human civilization"

The Great Debates: The Slavery Question


A possible solution was unintentionally proposed by John Dickenson of Delaware who in a speech denouncing the idea of a poll tax mockingly asserted southerners would " Declare their African slaves as people when entering our ports so as to avoid our duties on goods, only for them to experience a miraculous transformation into property by simply setting their feet on our soils, evading the poll tax as well!". Though Pinckney 'immediately rose, slamming his desk and demanding the speaker be chastised for slander', the comment moved the discussion to the question of the slave trade; a topic that had been neglected in light of larger, structural issues. As a southern gentleman from the state with the largest percentage of slaves owners in the nation himself, Madison could reach out with a compromise: what if, opposite of what Dickenson said, slaves would be treated as property when imported; subject to a higher tariff rate, but counted as people once in a state... of the purpose of determining the number of representatives it was allotted in the Assembly and its poll tax? He hoped this would help align the financial policy interests of Southern states with northern ones; not encouraging them to fund as much of the national government as possible via customs by tying it to the growth of the plantation economy while discouraging a high poll tax, where their slaves would be a liability. He also hoped a more prominent role for the region in the new government would help breed feelings of greater patriotism among its people, who's sympathies were far more for decentralization than the Nationalist stronghold of New England

This idea held great appeal to those Southerners not a part of the the Confederate clique, as it gave their states greater representation in the legislature and included a Constitutional provision preventing Congress from regulating the international slave trade without a 2/3 majority... something they saw as next to impossible. The guarantee of continued importation also came with an increased interest in the very fleet the duties they were agreeing to would fun, in order to keep the seas open and (a few of the more ambitious among them discussed in private) securing new, fertile territories in the Caribbean or even Africa itself. The Nationalists, though no entirely pleased with the idea, found the offer to agree to nearly the entire Hamilton-King economic and defence platform too good to refuse. In his later book A Report on Economic Nationalism, the Birth Thereof , Hamilton would explain his reasons for agreeing to the compromise like this

Certainly, I have said much about the impropriety of representing men who can not speak for themselves. However, for the nation to reach such a state were servile bondage is not only immoral but unprofitable, thereby removing the laws of the market which act as this perculer institution's preserver, it is nessicery to create the conditions for useful manufacture to prosper. The abolitionist, thinking only in terms of his principals, says we must ban the trafficking of slaves within twenty years by decree, but all that will accomplish is produce a reaction and destroy our nation before it can be birthed. It is my firm conviction that, with twenty years of a sound economic policy and the good enterprise that is unique to the spirit of the free American, I can do more far more to convince the South to abandon its feudal spirit than any judge's pen or general's saber.

Though opposed by a handful of hardcore Antislavery advocates; Dickenson first among them, considering the 'capitulation' a personal insult, the Madison Compromise would be enshrined in the Convention's final draft of the Constitution: signed by all delegates present except Dickenson, Yates, and Luther Martin of Maryland; the later two in symbolic rejection of the Convention's right to propose such a document. With the Convention's work over, the delegates returned to their states; many needing to manage the paperwork that came with fall harvests or to get ahead of a possible early winter. But the new government had yet to become a reality, and as the full text of the proposed Constitution was printed in newspapers and pamphlets all across the nation (And the Republic of Vermont) it became clear to both supporters and detractors the debate was not yet over.


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Signing of the Constitution (1787) Commissioned by President of Pennsylvania's Supreme
Executive Council Benjamin Franklin to celebrate the historical event in his state's capital,

the artist Charles Peala was given special permission to sit in on the last day's proceedings.
Yates and Luther Martin can be seen in the center foreground, Yates reading from
his copy of the Articles of Confederation.


Up Next: The Campaigns of Ratification: With Words, with Ink, and with Bullets

[*]
Several suggested names were used for the Legislature in preliminary drafts. The eventual designation of Continental Congresd would not be used exclusively until the document's final draft
 
Last edited:

Schnozzberry

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Quite interesting so far. If the north does secede, I'm really curious about the south. Will it descend into a series of small, impoverished republics, or will they unite as well?
 
The Fight For Ratification

With Words

Many Americans were surprised; either pleasantly or unpleasantly, by the radical changes proposed by the new Constitution. As far as they were aware, the Convention was merely supposed to amend the Articles of Confederation. On October 17th, the Congress of the Confederation unanimously approved a motion by the Convention's ambassador Rufus King to submit the new document to the State legislatures for approval (The representatives of the State of Rhode Island had boycotted the session in protest, preventing them from vetoing the move). The procedure for the Ratification would be treated as a complete "amendment" to the Articles; the Congress agreeing to accept the new Constitution if they could get 9 of the 13 states; a two thirds majority, to agree to it in special conventions. This method was seen as more 'democratic' than placing the question before state legislatures who, as King aptly put it "Could hardly be expected to be impartial in surrendering their own power!" and preferred by the former delegates. All sides felt that campaigns would convince the populace of the righteousness of the superiority of their cause.

The extent and content of campaigning varied from state to state. Some, like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland had texts of the draft circulating even before its official approve by the Confederate Congress; courtesy of Philadelphia print shops who'd worked tirelessly to mass-produce pamphlet versions at the behest of the delegates and distributed by riders. Depending on their employers, they would either sing the praises of the document or decry it as tyrannical as they traveled from village to village; quoting portions of the text and explaining, with a partisan slant, their impact to help support their point. When supporters of opposite sides would meet, it would often erupt into a loud and sometimes crude public debate; becoming a form of civic entertainment as the period happened to coincide with local harvest festivals. This style of political activism, with its direct and often brusque appeal to the common man, was the first example of the "Minstrel Campaign"; a term that would come to stick in the North American political vocabulary.

Supporters of the Constitution, adopting the label National Republicans (Usually still called Nationalists) focused largely on arguments on prosperity, security, and the new document's system of checks and balances. Not only would the Constitution create a government strong enough to meet its obligations to "Provide for the Common Defense and Promote the General Welfare", but would protect Americans from what Alexander Hamilton called "The tyranny of faction". Under the Articles, there existed no checks on state power, meaning the individual citizens could have their rights violated by a slim majority in their home state. Dividing power under the Constitutional framework would have the different branches of the National government and the states would all prevent any one of the others or any particular interests; such as merchants or small farmers, from gaining a disproportionate share of power.

Opponents of the Constitution, retaining their designation as Confederates, spoke largely in hypothetical about how the expanded powers of a strong central government might be abused. The states were sovereign for a reason, they declared, as the closer government power was to the people the more representative it would actually be. Most common among their arguments though was a lack of any summery of the citizens' rights and freedoms; something that was commonplace in state constitutions but suspiciously absent among this document saying all the things this new government could do. Why would such a thing be omitted, and the Supremacy Clause place national law over the content of State constitutions, if the political elite weren't at least considering violating those rights?

By and large, the Confederates didn't gain much traction in these early states. The printers and political leaders of the area largely held Nationalist sympathies, insuring the majority of the riders doing their rounds were endorsing their political views. The region also had many reasons to favor the new Constitution economically; a uniform protective tariff, repayment of bonds, and the promise of law and order from outlaws both at sea and on land appealed to nearly every class of Mid-Atlantic society. In the face of the easy to understand dialogue, dull legalistic counterpoints by Confederates such as Luther Martin in Maryland and Gunning Belford in Delaware held little sway and had little time to be heard. The home states of these contrarians would be two of the first three states to in the country in ratifying the Constitution; each giving a unanimous endorsement in their January 1st ratification conventions, to be followed the next day by Georgia. In Pennsylvania, the process went on somewhat longer, as special provisions relating to the slave trade and slave representation deeply upset some in the Quaker community. The state wouldn't end up voting in favor the Constitution until February 4th with the delegation split 41-28, being beaten out by Connecticut where the influence of the final draft's authors and a strong Nationalist culture meant their was little doubt about the outcome.

With Ink

While still effective, the up close and personal campaigning of the first months couldn't replicate its sweeping success in the larger, wealthier states who's local politicians had more influence under the Articles and who might have to take on a larger tax burden to support their smaller, poorer neighbors under the new government. This was particularly concerning in New York, as it was not only was it the home of he most prominent Confederate leaders who actively campaigned against Ratification, such as Patrick Henry, Robert Yates, and John Lansing Jr., but its geographic position, wealth, and the importance of New York City as a hub of commerce meant the new government might not be able to function effectively without its approval. Nationalist support was mainly centered in the "downstate" regions; on and immediately surrounding the mouth of the Hudson, but the state capital of Albany served as the center of the upstate's resistance to new, alien federal Institutions. Due to the distribution of land ownership in the state favoring the upstaters; who after the Revolution had confiscated a great deal of land from from dead or exiled Iroquois, this meant the initial situation at New York's convention was heavily Anti-Federalist. A similar situation could be seen in Massachusetts, where western farmers who had just experienced what many of them thought to be a righteous, popular uprising against a corrupt, centralizing urban elite were skeptical of yet more government interference in their lives.

In these states, the public debate over ratification was much more centralized around the personalities than their autonomous agents, with the longer period of campaigning allowing the two sides to conduct press wars against one another. The first shots were fired by an anonymous Confederate in New York; articles under the pseudonym 'The Federal Farmer' starting to pop up in papers across the state. Using the model of a Socratic Dialogue with an unidentified Nationalist figure known as the "The Prince" (Generally understood to be refering to Hamilton), The Thoughts of a Federal Farmer provided a deep, fully fleshed out description of Confederate fears and counters to common Nationalist points. Of particular note is where Federal Farmer accuses the Prince of monarchical tendencies by "permanently enshrining a many, on the election of a single day, to a lifetime of holding final judgement on the legitimacy of any law"; referring to doctrine of Ascendance (Ironically, this having been a concession made to the Convention's Pro-Confederate plan). As Federal Farmer entered wider circulation, several of the states' legislators would organize on its into the Albany Committee for Confederation ; a failed attempt to create a nation-wide party apperitis for the Confederate clique

Responding to the Confederate narrative several Nationalist leaders; primarily Hamilton, Madison, and John Jay, drafted a series of 85 essays; run as serials throughout the first half of 1788 in New York's papers, under the pseudonym "Publius"; after the famous Roman Consul who immediately followed the expulsion of Rome's monarchy. The Nationalist Papers were divided into 5 series, each analyzing and explaining in detail of the major provision of the Constitution, and why the type of government it would form was beneficial to all of society. The Papers had the advantage of starting their run after Federal Farmer, allowing the authors to counter specific points made and respond to current issues in a more free-form way than the conversational style of its counterparts. For example, one issue of the Papers would play on the Confederate assertion that a national government could take Kingly powers by stating "The charter on which we plan to base our government can not, in truth, take away such rights as to make the people serfs. Its character is only Kingly in that it restrains and punishes the wrongdoing of the barons; that is, the unrestricted state and faction, from imposing their whims upon their subjects. For the divided power between its constituent parts means each might be a check upon the other, making any oppression the national government might create is distant and of a specific character, while the immediate tyrant is by its nature always much crueler and general in his oppression." The Papers did have one major weakness though; it failed to sway away Confederates from the nessecity for a Bill of Rights. Indeed, they explicitly argued such a Bill wasn't necessary and would actually be detrimental, as by stating a list of rights as a state constitution would the Constitution could be mistakenly construed as to protecting only those specific rights.

No all Nationalists agreed with this position. In Massechutets, the debate for ratification took a surprising turn when public letters began circulating throughout the western backwoods; the author claiming to be Daniel Shay, writing from the Republic of Vermont. Though the courts in Boston had placed a death sentence on his head, Shay was still seen as a folk hero by many in the region. In these letters, he called on the "true Americans", the free farmers, to do everything in their power to bring down the Constitution. The letters decried the idea of a standing army as "The first of despotism", declared all citizens were sovereign and had no obligation to obey laws they didn't have a direct role in voting for, and denounced the Federalist leaders as "puppets of the merchant-princes, who would grow fat off your rent and watch you starve as they sit idle". Even if the Constitution did pass, he reasoned, there was nothing which forced free men to obey it, and proposed they form a militia to march on the Continental Congress with bayonets should it convene.

Appalled by this agitation, the General Assembly of Vermont was soon flooded with requests Boston politicians demanding Shay be extradited back to the Massachusetts to stand trail. The Vermonters, however, didn't even know where the author was or if he even was the rebel leader, and so politely refused the petitions. This lead to several angry voices in Boston and Albany to suggest the Vermonters were hiding him and that a regiment out to be sent into the state/region (New York still claimed Vermont was an integral part of their state) to capture the outlaw by force. Despite both disagreeing with the Constitution, the Confederates and the Shay-Inspired Sovereign Citizens clique (such as it was) were not allies. In their eyes, Shay was supporting anarchy, denying the sovereignty of states, and would put the 'justice' of mob rule over guaranteeing individual rights.

In order to appeal to the dissident Massachusites, Hamilton's writings wouldn't be sufficient. Instead, the pro-Ratification campaign fell to King and his more populist strand of Nationalism (The official term of National Republican is usually used to distinguish between the position of Nationalists like King and more orthodox Nationalists). Instead of reacting to the Shay Letters, King would instead present his arguments directly in a slew of leaflets, each stating his position and justification on one specific issue or or the necessity of a specific section or phrase in the Constitution. These documents, collectively refereed to as The People's Covenant, focused heavily on the populist elements of the Constitution; how it preserved republicanism, how consolidation of debt and indirect taxation would lead the lowering or removal of much-dreaded land and excise taxes, the national government's responsibility to its citizens and the safeguards its multi-teared court system provided against judicial injustice, benefits to public land that could be cheaply rented or sold to poor citizens, the need for a federal military to protect its citizens from "potential demagogues or monied individuals". He also argued vehemently for reforms he felt were needed; most importantly a Bill of Rights that the national government would be obligated to respect and to act if they were infringed upon by any state, muncipality, or lower court. Specifically, he mentions the freedom of the press, assembly, religion, the right to bear arms and form regulated militas, and trial by jury for all criminal cases. It has often been said that reading Covenant is like listening to King speak with your eyes; the words are addressed specifically to the reader, and organized more like a natural stream of consciousness and speech than the structured arguements of the New York literature, though the language is clearly polished and professional. King's words worked in placating the fears of the people, which translated into a huge upturn in Nationalist support; on March 14th, Massachusetts would become the 7th state to ratify the Constitution with a vote of 228-127




Up Next: The Ratification: The South, The Struggle for New York, and The Betrayal of Rhode Island
 
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Watched :). I look forward to seeing more!
Looking forward to seeing what you do with this...
This is great

Thank you all for the support. It seems there is interest on this topic after all, and I look forward to providing you with more

Quite interesting so far. If the north does secede, I'm really curious about the south. Will it descend into a series of small, impoverished republics, or will they unite as well?

We'll have to see about that. This Constitution and historical situation may very well lead down a path where the Southern states have a greater affinity for national government then they did IRL. Suffice to say a small, impoverished republic will be making an appearance in the next update.
 
Greetings.

My apologies for not posting an update in some time. A combination of research, job search, family affairs, and not yet having gotten into a groove ended up keeping this on my back burner. The next section will be up by this time tomorrow
 
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